For paralympian, sports 'a way of making peace'

Humanitarian group heads for Middle East.

Humanitarian group heads for Middle East.

January 25, 2009

CUTLERVILLE, Mich. (AP) -- An athlete who has won two Paralympic gold medals in wheelchair basketball will travel to Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza to instruct disabled soldiers and civilians in the sport. Cutlerville native Carlee Hoffman is a member of the Team USA women's wheelchair basketball squad that placed first in the Summer Paralympics in Athens in 2004 and in Beijing in 2008. Hoffman is going to the Middle East with a humanitarian-aid group called Mercy Corps. She will leave Feb. 1 and stay for three months. Her goal is to lay the foundation for a Paralympic team in the region, which she visited briefly in November. "I'm going to be doing a lot of development with the coaches and with the athletes," she told WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids. "I think I'm going to have a couple camps that I'll be running, some coaching clinics." Hoffman, 22, a graduate of South Christian High School in Grand Rapids and the University of Illinois, lost both legs below her knees at age 3 in a lawn mower accident. She was only 17 and the youngest member of the Team USA women's wheelchair basketball team at the Athens games. In Beijing, she scored 10 points on Sept. 15 as the team defeated Germany 50-38 in the gold medal game. At Illinois, she was a star player on a school team that won three straight national women's wheelchair basketball college titles from 2006-08. Hoffman had 19 points and 12 rebounds as the team defeated the University of Alabama 44-43 last March to capture its most recent championship. She said she's not nervous about traveling to an area of the Middle East where violence has escalated since the start of the new year. "I feel like I'm going to be pretty safe. I kind of feel like sport is a way of making peace."